Mahmoud v Breish and Hussein

By judgment handed down on 15 May 2020 the Court of Appeal (King LJ, Males LJ, Popplewell LJ) upheld two earlier judgments of Mr Justice Andrew Baker which had found that the Government of Libya was represented by the Government of National Accord and the Presidency Council and that that had been the case since at least April 2017, as contended by the Dr Ali Mahmoud Hassan Mohamed (“Dr Mahmoud”). It was accordingly not open to other parties to contend that the GNA and PC were not lawfully constituted as a matter of Libyan law.

The Court held that this conclusion followed from the recognition of the GNA and PC by Her Majesty’s Government and application of the “one voice” principle articulated by Lord Atkin in The Arantzazu Mendi [1939] AC 256.

The rulings were given in the context of a dispute as to the Chairmanship of the Libyan Investment Authority between, inter alios, Dr Mahmoud and Mr AbdulMagid Breish, and previously considered by Mr Justice Blair in Bouhadi v Breish [2016] EWHC 602 (Comm).

Timothy Otty QC appeared for Dr Mahmoud instructed by Macfarlanes LLP.

Shaheed Fatima QC and Eesvan Krishnan appeared for Mr Breish instructed by Stephenson Harwood LLP.

The judgment can be found here.